valleys of glass and steel

I wonder now, what wars were waged
in the dendrite labyrinths of your days
as the callow Queen of What Could Be.

I wonder now, how long you swam,
funnel-eyed,
sick with dreams
and beautiful things, the
glittering malfeasance pressing
in like rancid sausage to sour the grey
highways into cul de sacs and park its
noxious hunger
in accommodating folds.

I ask you now, were you shocked at the
softness of the stone? Its wilful yield
to careless masons giddy with
heinous tools; igneous marrow scraped
out screaming in noble curlicues;
spirals laid still now
on this canvas of stone.

I remember you now, in spite of myself,
as I wonder what wizards caper tonight
with their spells
in these valleys of glass and steel.